Fierceton was living off-campus by then, but she and her roommates decided to leave their apartment. She has a bachelor's degree in political science from Penn and was working on a master's in social work. Im curious, having dealt with so many people along the way, who are questioning your story, how do you feel like the boxes play into this? After the trial ended with Morrison prevailing and the agency ordered to remove her name from the child-abuse registry, Fierceton resolved to change her last name. There were so many there are, I guess I should say so many moving pieces. And that is part of what felt like it gave me such a home, is because we had these sort of underlying shared experiences, but all came from different backgrounds to an extent, and all still supported and accepted one another. Beth Winkelstein, at the time Penn's deputy provost, signed off on her application for the school, writing that "Mackenzie understands what it is like to be an at-risk youth, and she is determined to re-make the systems that block rather than facilitate success. And if you havent already, please subscribe to the show so you can hear it every week. In other words, if you are parent who says that you are wishing your daughter well and youre telling the authorities that shes just mentally ill and its just a really, really sad and tragic case that shes making up all of these allegations of abuse and throwing herself down stairs, and beating herself up all for cries for help, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera you wouldnt then also pursue a multi-year long effort to destroy her life. And again, people, including Penn administrators, have the perception of I think the stereotype and my friend Anea Moore, whos a Rhodes Scholar and graduate of Penn who founded Penn first or co-founded it had a really great quote in The New Yorker about we arent all, quote-unquote something along the lines of like impoverished, inner city kids who go to crumbling public schools as the wider media portrays us to be. And I was the one who uncovered my classmates death. Or is that it separates two into one? And eventually they filed a big wrongful death lawsuit in August 2020. It finds the definition the university's office uses, without that language, as being more determinative; Penn First, the FGLI student organization Fierceton had been involved with, also used that definition on its website for most of the time she was an undergraduate. Now anyone who earns that distinction is to be commended, but the article also noted that Mackenzie had aged out of foster care . One, Michael Raffaele, said he believed Morrison was trying to leave Fierceton with no other options. Mackenzie Fierceton (born Mackenzie Terrell on August 9, 1997; later Mackenzie Morrison, [1] : 63-64, 86 ) is an American activist and graduate student currently studying at Oxford University. But I got a bit of pressure from Penn to do that. She didnt know any of the circumstances of his death. To me, it seems like any reader of the English language would read that in a literary sense , of its self-exploration, self-doubt, trauma. ", Morrison said. She told them she felt that would be more likely to get an unbiased answer that way. I mean, part of it is honestly like its looking at cause we just wanted to be as thorough as possible of when [laughs] I was crying, and then I was crying and taking breaths. [2], Local police were called. Fierceton said that when she had applied to SP2 as a sophomore she had cleared it with the school's associate director of admissions, who told her that a student's biological parents were not relevant to that definition, and said the same thing in 2020 (Penn's OSC interviewed the associate director and SP2's associate director for financial aid whom Fierceton said she had a similar conversation with; neither remembered speaking with Fierceton about the issue)[1]:111112). And then theres also foster siblings in the sense of other people who are in the foster care system who youre living with. And so thats the low-income box. RG: So you applied for your masters in social work and there was a question of whether to check the, what Ive learned is called the FGLI box: first-generation, low-income. [2], Shortly after the Rhodes investigation began, Rafaelle was informed that Penn was proposing to revoke Fierceton's bachelors on the grounds of her apparent self-misrepresentation. It was: Shes a spoiled little brat. Why were you in the hospital that long? Yes, to my lawyer who communicated it to me. So Im not sure how much could have been missing. Penn has released its hold on a master of social work degree from Mackenzie Fierceton the former Rhodes Scholarship recipient who filed a lawsuit against the University following its investigation into allegations that she falsified her status as a first-generation, low-income student and survivor of abuse. I think they do have a richer experience if they have more diversity around them, but that is more the point. [i] Ruderman corroborated that later to The New Yorker, saying she was paraphrasing Fierceton's self-identification as FGLI. It quotes her as saying "If you find me dead, it was my mom. She was one of only 32 high school students selected from a pool of 2300 applicants. 's office explained the decision to drop the charges against Morrison as based on new evidence that had emerged. She kept a journal, writing that she was in so much pain from her bruised ribs that she could barely breathe. MF: She, to my knowledge, has stuck by that. ", "Inside Mackenzie Fierceton's ongoing legal battle with the University", "Mackenzie Fierceton Sets the Record Straight on Losing a Rhodes Scholarship Over Accusations of 'Dishonesty', "Penn community rallies in support of former Rhodes Scholar Mackenzie Fierceton", "Universities must stop fetishizing trauma", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mackenzie_Fierceton&oldid=1138496124, controversy over representation of childhood and abuse, This page was last edited on 10 February 2023, at 00:35. The Inquirer story came out in November 2020. I didnt really know what it was going to be, but I feel like its always good to have someone with you. [2], In July the OSC concluded its investigation with a 31-page report sent to provost Wendell Pritchett examining Fierceton's background more extensively than the Rhodes Trust had. And: Did you report what was going on to your school? If we review your medical records, are we going to see you had broken ribs and facial injuries? Whereas white parents, a lot of times, it is much harder the bar is much higher to remove them from their homes because their whiteness or possibly class privilege or whatever identities that they have that might not fit a social worker or judges or whoevers involved perception of whose kids should be in the foster system. It called attention to claims, such as the one in her application essay, that by the time she was six she "knew every police officer in my county by their first name", a claim Fierceton herself admitted was untrue and born of her fear of her biological family when she wrote it. She didnt know he was in the basement. But yeah, that, I guess, just one point of clarification that I recently, in the last few months, just found out about. "I think that we could contribute to the community, the broader Philadelphia community, and the West Philadelphia community more positively, instead of doing things that are not only undermining them but are actively policing them, and end up creating and perpetuating more violence," she told The Daily Pennsylvanian, the university's student newspaper. Is it as well explored territory as a school-to-prison pipeline? "[4][2], Winkelstein followed up with a letter to Elizabeth Kiss, the trust's CEO, alerting her that the university had been investigating Fierceton's story, found it to have seriously diverged from the reality of her life, with the abuse allegations quite possibly fabricated. She definitely asked some questions about it. In 2020, former foster child Mackenzie Fierceton received a Rhodes Scholarship as a self-identified first generation, low income student at the University of Pennsylvania. And so was it later, in a different conversation where they asked about the line in the essay about not being able to recognize yourself or is there some illusion to that in the transcript that you found? And we have our own specific grad school definitions. Fierceton finished her Whitfield education on a scholarship while living in foster homes. RG: Talk just a little bit about that case . students, defines first generation broadly, including students who have a strained or limited relationship with a parent who has graduated from college. Enough blood? And we spoke for a long time and I went through everything I had found. And whats the difference between the U.S. and English system? RG: Right. January 7, 2022. She got straight A's, served in student government, managed the field hockey team, played varsity soccer, and volunteered to assist with the local Special Olympics. [2], "Family is not the people you are related to by blood," she wrote in the diary. This made Fierceton feel as if she were being watched for anything she did that could be used against the state's case by her mother. And then she hired a law firm and eventually they were doing their own investigation for several months. Like, those two things dont fit together. Mackenzie Fierceton (born Mackenzie Terrell on August 9, 1997; later Mackenzie Morrison,[1]:6364,86) is an American activist and graduate student currently studying at Oxford University. "[2], Fierceton answered yes. But I think a lot of it stems from the current policies and practices of federal and local funding and what kind of programs theyre funding for kids. [Laughs.]. And then very quickly turn to very specific questions about different instances of abuse. Are we going to see these injuries? "[2], That feeling was not mutual, Fierceton came to suspect. Its hard to say. Yes. Or is this something thats been overlooked? Then the University of Pennsylvania accused her of lying. And theyll openly talk about this. Cause I had assumed it was her. Whereas a social worker comes into a poor home and looks around and sees just the normal poverty that our system has foisted on people and says: Oh, well, clearly this is somebody that needs to be stripped out of here. Fierceton says she had not failed any tests; her Whitfield transcript shows she got a B+ in the class. By the end of the year she was in a third foster home. And it felt very similar that, well, this cant be real. And you saw that playing out right away, right, when your biological mother was first arrested? RG: Right. And at the time I was more in panic mode than like, let me step back and look at this logically, theres absolutely no case, this is an intimidation tactic to try to silence me and sign this NDA and withdraw from the Rhodes and agree to whatever terms they wanted me to agree to you. As youve had time to sort through this, what do you think was driving Penn to go through this process, which they had to know, at some level, would cost them? Morrison's name was therefore ordered removed from the DSS registry. Although she had not attended an orientation session for first-generation/low-income (FGLI) students she had been invited to, on campus she began attending meetings and gatherings of Penn First, an FGLI student group founded the preceding year to pressure Penn to better accommodate their needs, such as not closing dormitories and cafeterias over breaks since many FGLI students could not, for various reasons, return home during those periods. Penn shut down in-person classes and gave students living on campus a week to find somewhere else to live until it was safe to return. You didnt grow up in crumbling projects your entire life. How do I do that in a succinct way when theres a very short word count and youre trying to fit everyones experience in?And so I didnt really think about: Oh, I need to say: This foster sibling who was in the foster care system. It didnt have any facts of the case. So, yes, an article came out in the local paper saying that she had been arrested. Shes lying, shes a spoiled brat, this, that, and the other which looking back at the time I just felt absolutely horrible. MF: You know, I honestly dont know. The 35-year-old has been hit with two warrants for his arrest. And how much confidence do you have that that anonymous complainer was Carrie, your biological mother. Yeah. [2][e], A spokesman for the D.A. When she was a teenager, she showed up bloodied and bruised at her elite private school. Fierceton believes it was likely sent by Morrison or one of her close relatives. Fierceton wished that she had been more willing to correct mistaken impressions that she might have made and at the time "just kind of crumbled behind the pressure. Its practically half of Americans, or more. They demanded that the university remove the notation from her file. RG: Right. Its just so obvious that you fit the criteria for low-income, but it seems like they feel like you dont fit it in the spirit of how they want it. Morrison told White in an email. Within days of the article being published, the universitys general counsel was in touch with Mackenzies mother. Mackenzie Fierceton grew up poor, cycling through the rocky child welfare system. Fierceton's mother's supporters have maintained that her daughter was an emotionally manipulative girl who injured herself and fabricated other aspects of the abuse in order to become a more appealing candidate for admission to an Ivy League college such as the University of Pennsylvania. No, I cant. But it was definitely something I saw happening sort of this funneling of kids from the child welfare to criminal justice system. Like some students do have a story, more like me where they had some kind of separation from their family; other students their parents were doctors or lawyers or Ph.D. students in other countries, but then they came here and their degrees no longer, essentially, counted or people who are just first-generation and not necessarily low-income or people who are low-income, but not first-generation. How much research has been done on the foster-care-to-prison-pipeline? . [2], Some of those Morrison talked with did believe her; a classmate of Fierceton's recalled people likening her to the protagonist of the film Gone Girl, about a Missouri woman who disappears in order to avenge herself on an adulterous husband, whom she makes it appear killed her. It recommended the scholarship be rescinded. [2][g], The packages she says she received were supplemented by hangup calls, which a faculty member Fierceton occasionally lived with recalled her receiving in the months preceding the trial of her mother's lawsuit against DSS later in her junior year. A University of Pennsylvania May graduate who is currently completing her master's degree at Penn has been awarded a Rhodes Scholarship for graduate study at the University of Oxford.. Penn's 2021 Rhodes Scholar is Mackenzie Fierceton from St. Louis, currently residing in Philadelphia. So that was, I think later on that specific line came into question. [2] They learned that SP2 had no real protocol for an emergency situation in the building. But those definitions arent anywhere to be found. In addition it offered details of what its own investigation had concluded about Fierceton's childhood and adolescence that led OSC to believe it was likely that she had exaggerated or fabricated outright her claims about her mother. Two weeks into the school year, she realized she had been wrong. I mean, youd been taking loss after loss, despite having the facts on your side. But they just assumed theres no way that it could have happened. Yeah. And it was also the community was kind of divided. And theres also literature thats economic literature versus sociology, different fields have different perspectives on what that relationship between foster care and the criminal justice system is and what the causes are. His master's level university, Ivy College Pennsylvania, also failed to grant him the acquired master's degree . Now-provost Beth Winkelstein told this person: I know youre here as a supporter for MacKenzie, but you cannot speak. [1]:64, In February 2015, before presenting the evidence against Morrison to a grand jury for an indictment, the St. Louis County district attorney's office dropped all the charges against Morrison over Brandt's objections. on about your day, ask yourself: How likely is it that the story you just read would have been produced by a different news outlet if The Intercept hadnt done it? The university writes: After those who knew Fierceton raised questions about her story, it was investigated not just once, but several times, and not just by Penn faculty and staff, but also the Rhodes Trust. And you experienced that yourself, right? Our focus is not on the debate it reviews over Mackenzie Fierceton's accounts of her life, though we affirm her integrity. [3] "Mackenzie may have centered certain aspects of her background to the exclusion of othersfor reasons we are certain she feels are validin a way that creates a misimpression," the report said.